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The Attenbury Emeralds (Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane #3)

3.61 of 5 stars 3.61 · rating details · 630 ratings · 212 reviews

In 1936, Dorothy L. Sayers abandoned the last Lord Peter Wimsey detective story. Sixty years later, a brown paper parcel containing a copy of the manuscript was discovered in her agent’s safe in London, and award-winning novelist Jill Paton Walsh was commissioned to complete it. The result of the pairing of Dorothy L. Sayers with Walsh was the international bestseller Thro...more

Hardcover, 338 pages

Published January 4th 2011 by Minotaur Books (first published January 1st 2010)

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Dec 13, 2011 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have read all three of Jill Paton Walsh's books dealing with Dorothy L. Sayers' detective Lord Peter Wimsey, and I have to say, she gets better with each book. With The Attenbury Emeralds the author did a far better job with the banter and character of not only Lord Peter, but also with his beloved wife, mystery novelist, Harriet Vane and Lord Peter's faithful manservant, Bunter. This book reads much more like a Dorothy L. Sayers book than Jill Paton Walsh's other two Lord Peter books, and in...more I have read all three of Jill Paton Walsh's books dealing with Dorothy L. Sayers' detective Lord Peter Wimsey, and I have to say, she gets better with each book. With The Attenbury Emeralds the author did a far better job with the banter and character of not only Lord Peter, but also with his beloved wife, mystery novelist, Harriet Vane and Lord Peter's faithful manservant, Bunter. This book reads much more like a Dorothy L. Sayers book than Jill Paton Walsh's other two Lord Peter books, and in fact the author also follows Ms Sayers' lead in using her detective fiction as social commentary. Social commentary of post-WWII Britain, however, it still rings true (why do the British aristocracy delegate so much responsibility to their servants, when as soon as anything goes wrong they firmly thrust all suspicion in the direction of those supposedly trustworthy souls?). Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter books were amusing and Ms Paton Walsh manages to be amusing in The Attenbury Emeralds as well. My favorite scene happens when Lord Peter is praising his wife as Britain's greatest detective fiction writer, and Harriet responds that she is no, "Arthur Conon Doyle, Agatha Christie, or Dorothy L. Sayers".

This book begins with Lord Peter and Bunter, describing Lord Peter's first detective case (involving the theft of the famed Attenbury Emeralds) to Harriet, after which Lord Peter is immediately thrown into yet another mystery involving the Attenbury Emeralds. I actually prefered the narrative involving the older cases to the action of the new case. Jill Paton Walsh, also took on the rest of Lord Peter's family with success in this book. She brings Lord Peter's mother, Honoria, Dowager Dutchess of Denver into the story, his sister Mary Parker, wife of his close friend (and police officer) Charles Parker, as well as Lord Peter's odious sister-in-law, Helen - and she does a great job with all the characters. This book takes place a long time after the Dorothy L. Sayers' books, but I thought it was a great addition to the Lord Peter canon, and I found I believed that this was the direction Dorothy L. Sayers would have taken Lord Peter and his family, had she not given up on them so very long ago.(less)

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Sep 21, 2010 Miles rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews

I approached “The Attenbury Emeralds” by Jill Paton Walsh with a great sense of anticipation and eagerness, for I have always shared an affinity with all things “whodunit” and the 1920’s angle further whetted my appetite. I began with a cautious optimism but soon realised I would not be disappointed.

Lord Peter Wimsey was an intelligence officer in the Great War. He returned home shell-shocked, struggling to come to terms with ordering soldiers under his command over the top to a certain death, s...more

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Nov 23, 2010 AmandaLil rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads, 2010, fiction

Thank you to Goodreads and the publisher for this "first reads" win.

Having never read any of the books by Dorthy L. Sayers or Jill Patton Walsh I approached this book as an outsider with no background knowledge of the characters or style of writing, so I was a little hesitant when I began. Although the first couple chapters were slow, probably because of the long cast of characters, it immediatly picked up with an excellent mystery that in itself would make the book worth reading. The highlight...more

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Feb 13, 2011 Marilou rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: tea-cozy-mystery

As an American fan of Lord Peter Wimsey, I was all aflutter when I read (on Edward Petherbridge's website) about the release of Jill Paton Walsh's newest update on the Wimsey line. I decided I should not have to wait until the USA release and, so, ordered it from Amazon UK. Initially, I thought I'd be disappointed when I realized the story was to be told in recollections. However, by the time I'd finished the first disc, I had renewed my love affair with Wimsey and Bunter and their circle. Of co...more

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May 25, 2011 Renee Bush rated it 5 of 5 stars

Differences? Of course there are differences; this author is not Sayers, and that should settle it. But the similarities are what make reading Jill Paton Walsh such a delight; those, plus the differences she herself manages to meld rather seamlessly into the work.

If anything, the most notable difference, to me, is also the most welcome: far fewer obscure citations, quotations, and veiled references. I consider myself of average erudition, but with the advent of Google, a few years back, I found...more

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May 31, 2011 Mary Frances rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was torn between 3 and 4 stars, and finally decided on 4 because I am happy to have Peter and Harriet at all, even with limitations. This is a quirky books- almost the entire book is exposition, with Peter and Bunter telling Harriet about a case that happened in the early 20s. The present in the book is 1951. I enjoyed the book nonetheless but it was an odd choice. It is also the first book Walsh claimed as sole author without a credit to Sayers, and I will say that the lack of Sayer's plottin...more

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Sep 09, 2011 Myfavoritegeorgie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: british-mysteries, giveaway, own-have-read, and, z2010-read, 2010-read

Actually 3.5 stars would be better.

I won this book thru the Giveaways program; thanks very much! It was one I particularly wanted.

This book is set in the later years of the Wimsey's lives; their children are well into their Eton years; Bunter still functions as the perfect man servant, but occasionally dines at the Wimsey's table with his wife; Peter still collects old books; Harriet still writes. Helen is still a pain in the rear.

The mystery portion of the book, particularly in the later part,...more

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Mar 14, 2013 Kathy Davie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, mystery

Third (& last?) in the Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane historical mystery series carried on from Dorothy L. Sayers by Jill Paton Walsh.

My Take
It is a recollection of Lord Peter's rising as a detective to his "death" as a detective now that he has something of more immediacy to occupy his thoughts, using the stories and intrigue surrounding the Attenbury emeralds through the years.

This was a sad tale, partly because it doesn't even feel like a Dorothy Sayers and partly because there is so...more

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Jan 20, 2013 John rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: mysteries

I was prepared to make allowances for the author not being the author who originally created the characters. Dorothy Sayers was erudite and had a great command of the English language, so it would be too much to expect that Ms. Walsh would have the same level of finesse in writing.

The book fails for me in other respects. The first part of the book is taken up with recounting the back-story. This is done by Peter and Bunter telling the story to Harriet while they are sitting in various places: th...more

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Dec 10, 2012 Lizzie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: british-invasion, historical-romance, mystery, read-in-2012, the-long-weekend

I have been on a Dorothy L. Sayers binge inspired by a hankering I have for post WWI settings generated by my current project: Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest. Reading Walsh is not the same as reading Sayers; as long as you accept that fact straight-on, you will not be disappointed. Sayers was all too coy with her characters; you really have to plumb her books in order to capture the flashes of character development and revelation that make her fiction so wo...more

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Aug 31, 2012 Lizzie Hayes rated it 4 of 5 stars

‘The Attenbury Emeralds’ by Jill Paton Walsh
Published by Hodder & Stoughton, September 2010.
ISBN: 978-0-340-99572-3

Reading in the Times of the death of Lord Attenbury, Lady Peter Wimsey enquires of her husband Lord Peter Wimsey the story of the Attenbury Emeralds, as she thought that his first case was the Attenbury diamonds. Peter says that to relate the story in its fullest detail he needs his man Bunter, and so in elegant conversation the original story of The Attenbury Emeralds is unfol...more

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Jun 24, 2012 Judy rated it 3 of 5 stars

While Jill Paton Walsh's revival of the Lord Peter Wimsey books don't rise to the standards of Dorothy L. Sayers' originals, it is a treat to have Lord Peter and his wife, Harriet Vane, back. Sayers wrote her last Peter Wimsey story in 1936 and during the 1990s an unfinished manuscript was discovered in her agent's safe. Jill Paton Walsh was commissioned to finish the book, Thrones, Dominations, which became a best-seller. Then Walsh was given permission to continue to use Sayers' characters in...more

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Apr 14, 2012 TheRealMelbelle rated it 1 of 5 stars

This review says it better than I could....I was so disappointed.
**************************************************************************************************
Ascexis
Aug 31, 2011
Ascexis rated it 1 of 5 stars false
Shelves: neverreadagain, crime
I waited for the paperback of the Attenbury Emeralds, and my only regret is not leaving it a little longer and just buying it second hand. The word that comes to mind is shoddy.

Jill Patton Walsh's Peter Wimsey is unrecognisable, self-indulgent, self pit...more This review says it better than I could....I was so disappointed.
**************************************************************************************************
Ascexis
Aug 31, 2011
Ascexis rated it 1 of 5 stars false
Shelves: neverreadagain, crime
I waited for the paperback of the Attenbury Emeralds, and my only regret is not leaving it a little longer and just buying it second hand. The word that comes to mind is shoddy.

Jill Patton Walsh's Peter Wimsey is unrecognisable, self-indulgent, self pitying and out of touch with his core of moral rectitude tempered by feudal sense of obligation and duty.

The opening pages dive straight into anachronistic discussion of 'flashbacks' to the first world war, forgetting apparently, that he was also in the Second. The similarly anachronistic preachiness of toleration and diversity, and the guilty admissions of racist behaviour 'back before the war' is not merely anachronistic guilt about bigotry but inaccurate depictions of bigotry. Anti-Semitism was a worse problem than racism in that period, and yet, it's unlikely that a mixed race woman would be a lecturer at LSE in 1942.

The story itself is involuted, ridiculously dependent on coincidences and silly behaviour, and despite all its twists and turns of seeming complexity, painfully obvious as to who committed the crimes. I admit to a certain incredulity that the person concerned did not find the later murders rather difficult to accomplish given their advancing years. My incredulity is further strained by the self-indulgent tripe based around the problems of insurance claims and death taxes. Peter, we are given to believe by Dorothy Sayers, is a concerned, financially savvy landlord -- but not in this book. Here, apparently he hasn't bothered rebuilding the bombed out land he owns, and the death duties will require all his money, all Denver's money and to sell most the land besides. IHT was high then, yes, but not that high.

Hanging a lantern on the fact that the story requires a series of coincidences, a piece of amazingly poor judgement by Peter in the first section of the story (who has no problem questioning children on other occasions) does not make those instances any better. Indeed, they just make it apparent that the author was well aware of the laziness of her storytelling, but just couldn't be bothered to fix it. Execrable.(less)
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Jan 12, 2012 Knitme23 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Just finished listening to this on my Christmas ipod, requested for just this purpose! We had a half day due to a storm, so I hastened home and tucked in (after a chilly run, just to make it more deserved) to listen and knit. Heaven!

My enjoyment of this book grew as I figured out more about it. I bought it essentially blind, having loved all the other Wimseys and the Sayers/Paton Walsh combos, so I just hit "purchase" and "download" and there we went. I knew it was a retelling of Peter's first...more Just finished listening to this on my Christmas ipod, requested for just this purpose! We had a half day due to a storm, so I hastened home and tucked in (after a chilly run, just to make it more deserved) to listen and knit. Heaven!

My enjoyment of this book grew as I figured out more about it. I bought it essentially blind, having loved all the other Wimseys and the Sayers/Paton Walsh combos, so I just hit "purchase" and "download" and there we went. I knew it was a retelling of Peter's first case, and that was about it. I think if I'd had a chance to see the book itself, to get a sense of its length and therefore its development, I'd've liked it more from the first. As it was, I was a little bewildered at first, feeling that the character and story of the young, shell-shocked Peter Wimsey was pretty scanty, and the story of the solution of the missing emeralds quite a let-down. However, the book kept going--it downloaded in two parts, and it has about 26 lengthy chapters--and the plot deepened and developed in interesting and unexpected ways. There was some distance that doesn't arise in the Sayers books, because I kept thinking, "Would SHE have done it this way?", but overall, I was pleased and entertained throughout. Two minor quibbles: I agree with another reviewer (on Amazon, I think), who said that Peter and Harriet's relationship is less vivid than in the originals. I felt at points the same way I feel when I read a paper written on a book that the writer has only read ABOUT on Sparknotes or some other cheating site: that Walsh was feeling her way along, imagining what someone else meant or would say, while Sayers had that first hand experience and imagination with what were her own creations (and Walsh turns Helen into a completely unsympathetic shrew. That was a failure). That feeling lessened towards the end, but I did notice it. My second objection is that Edward Petherbridge, the audiobook reader, is a little too precious: he whispers for dramatic effect when I think Lord Peter would not, and he occasionally delivers a line too smugly, making me long for the urbanity of Ian Carmichael. Once again, however, I lost that concern as the plot developed.

All in all, a rollicking success, odd as it seems to imagine Peter Wimsey in 1952!(less)

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Dec 16, 2011 Amy rated it 2 of 5 stars

As reviewed for Library Journal:

This is Walsh's third venture into writing in the Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane universe created by Dorothy L. Sayers. Her first, Thrones, Dominations, completed an unfinished Sayers's novel, based on notes. Her second, A Presumption of Death, was based on a series of Sayers's articles known as "The Wimsey Papers." This new title is the first to bear only Walsh's name as author, although the eponymous case was referred to many times throughout Sayers's novels as

...more

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Aug 31, 2011 Ascexis rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: neverreadagain, crime

I waited for the paperback of the Attenbury Emeralds, and my only regret is not leaving it a little longer and just buying it second hand. The word that comes to mind is shoddy.

Jill Patton Walsh's Peter Wimsey is unrecognisable, self-indulgent, self pitying and out of touch with his core of moral rectitude tempered by feudal sense of obligation and duty.

The opening pages dive straight into anachronistic discussion of 'flashbacks' to the first world war, forgetting apparently, that he was also i...more I waited for the paperback of the Attenbury Emeralds, and my only regret is not leaving it a little longer and just buying it second hand. The word that comes to mind is shoddy.

Jill Patton Walsh's Peter Wimsey is unrecognisable, self-indulgent, self pitying and out of touch with his core of moral rectitude tempered by feudal sense of obligation and duty.

The opening pages dive straight into anachronistic discussion of 'flashbacks' to the first world war, forgetting apparently, that he was also in the Second. The similarly anachronistic preachiness of toleration and diversity, and the guilty admissions of racist behaviour 'back before the war' is not merely anachronistic guilt about bigotry but inaccurate depictions of bigotry. Anti-Semitism was a worse problem than racism in that period, and yet, it's unlikely that a mixed race woman would be a lecturer at LSE in 1942.

The story itself is involuted, ridiculously dependent on coincidences and silly behaviour, and despite all its twists and turns of seeming complexity, painfully obvious as to who committed the crimes. I admit to a certain incredulity that the person concerned did not find the later murders rather difficult to accomplish given their advancing years. My incredulity is further strained by the self-indulgent tripe based around the problems of insurance claims and death taxes. Peter, we are given to believe by Dorothy Sayers, is a concerned, financially savvy landlord -- but not in this book. Here, apparently he hasn't bothered rebuilding the bombed out land he owns, and the death duties will require all his money, all Denver's money and to sell most the land besides. IHT was high then, yes, but not that high.

Hanging a lantern on the fact that the story requires a series of coincidences, a piece of amazingly poor judgement by Peter in the first section of the story (who has no problem questioning children on other occasions) does not make those instances any better. Indeed, they just make it apparent that the author was well aware of the laziness of her storytelling, but just couldn't be bothered to fix it. Execrable.(less)

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Jul 29, 2011 Dav'ne rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Arlene Havlark

I have loved all of the Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey novels and this, written by Joyce Paton Walsh using a manuscript discovered after Sayers' death, is just as good as the others. If you love British mysteries and serial books, start at the beginning of the Lord Peter Wimsey series:

1. Whose Body? (1923)
2. Clouds of Witness (1926)
3. Unnatural Death (1927)
4. Lord Peter Views the Body (1928)
5. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1928)
6. Strong Poison (1930)
7. The Five Red Herrings (193...more

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Jul 03, 2011 Stven rated it 4 of 5 stars

A lovely book. Jill Paton Walsh has done us all proud, Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane and Dorothy Sayers and all the fans for all these generations. At first in this book the whole process seems rather odd, telling the tale of Lord Peter's first case all in retrospect in chapters full of quote-within-quotes, but eventually the past is unraveled and we come out into the present world -- or still, rather, the post-WWII world of England inhabited by Lord Peter in his 60s -- and find that this has be...more

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Apr 05, 2011 Nikki rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, mysteries, books-set-in-england

This is, I think, the third of Jill Paton Walsh's books using the characters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Some may find them heresy and others, like me, will enjoy meeting Harriet and Lord Peter again. In this book it's 1951 and Harriet asks Lord Peter to tell her about one of his earliest cases, The Attenbury Emeralds (referred to in at least one of Sayers's books). He and Bunter tell about the emeralds and the later case of the Attenbury diamonds, and then the present Lord Attenbury arrives at the Wi...more

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Feb 02, 2011 Cornerofmadness rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Walsh is an award winning novelist and has been commissioned to take over Dorothy Sayers’s Lord Peter Whimsey novels (apparently finishing a half-finished Sayers book before crafting this one). That sort of thing is always dicey but it’s been ages since I’ve read Whimsey so I can’t say if she’s faithful to the series. It seemed fairly in character.

That said, this is a very British mystery. It’s very slow to get started. It’s many years down the road. Peter is sixty and over breakfast, Harriet Va...more Walsh is an award winning novelist and has been commissioned to take over Dorothy Sayers’s Lord Peter Whimsey novels (apparently finishing a half-finished Sayers book before crafting this one). That sort of thing is always dicey but it’s been ages since I’ve read Whimsey so I can’t say if she’s faithful to the series. It seemed fairly in character.

That said, this is a very British mystery. It’s very slow to get started. It’s many years down the road. Peter is sixty and over breakfast, Harriet Vane, his wife and mystery novelist, asks him about Lord Attenbury’s emeralds having seen the Lord’s obituary in the paper and knowing Peter had solved a case for him, Peter’s very first, but she thought it was diamonds.

Peter goes on to tell her, with the help of Bunter, his ever faithful man-servant, and later on in the book, with the help of Peter’s mother the Dowager Duchess. Basically his friend, Attenbury had an emerald, one of two that had once belonged to an Indian prince before the British took over India. On the back of the stones is something written in Persian and that is the only thing distinguishing the two. Naturally Attenbury’s emerald has gone missing and Peter helped him get it back.

This literally goes on for nearly 130 pages of a 330 page book. There is a definitely loss of immediacy when you get the story via three people sitting around talking. Well, naturally the next day the new Lord Attenbury shows up. Like many nobles, he’s money strapped and wants to sell the emerald but the bank says there’s been a claim that it is not his. Knowing there are two stones, Peter and Harriet (and Bunter of course) try to find out if this isn’t Attenbury’s emerald, when in the world did the switch happen.

In the course of this, they find more dead bodies attached to the emerald. Inexplicably in the middle of all this we throw in some personal stuff for Peter to deal with that just seemed, I don’t know, there merely because Walsh wanted to bump him up the aristocrat ladder and I wasn’t tremendously interested in it. The novel isn’t bad but it is slow. The ending, however, is fast, too fast and a little too out of thin air for me. Then there’s another thirty pages of wrapping up. Over all, not bad but there are pacing issues throughout, at least for me.
(less)

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Jan 25, 2011 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars

I won't bother with a synopsis as that is provided above; but if you are a Peter Wimsey/Sayers fan like me, you will be thrilled to see another novel in the wonderful series by Jill Paton Walsh. It helps to be a fan of the whole genre of Golden Age British Mysteries (Christie, Allingham, Sayers, Marsh, Heyer, etc.), and I collect and treasure all of those authors. I read an Amazon review that very wisely pointed out that if you are NOT a fan of the slower-paced, more conversational mysteries of...more

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Jan 10, 2011 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

I actually liked this one far better than her prior Lord Peter books (which isn't saying much- I rather loathed Thrones, Dominations and A Presumption of Death).

One of my biggest complaints about JPW's earlier Lord Peter Wimsey books was the fact that it was excruciatingly obvious that they were being written by a modern author, who really didn't quite understand where Sayers and her characters were coming from. By setting the main action in 1951 (and thus, closer to modern times and modern sens...more

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Dec 19, 2010 Marleen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A Lord Peter Wimsey story, based on the characters by Dorothy L. Sayers.

The mysteries written by Dorothy Sayers were the second English language series I discovered, after Agatha Christie. It was also a series suggested to me by my mother, who owned a few of he books and happily provided me with the ones I didn't have.
The fact that they came so highly recommended by my mother, is only one of the reasons I like the books and the characters so much. Another reason is that Mrs. Sayers wrote good my...more

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Nov 11, 2010 Deena rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads, historical-fiction, mystery

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I was fortunate to win an ARC of this through GoodReads. Fortunately it arrived at a time when I didn't have any other fiction to read, so I read it straight off and am very glad I did.

First, some background: I am a rereader, and I have read literally all of Sayers' detective fiction countless times (literally). So it was with both trepidation and excitement that I read Ms. Paton Walsh's completion of Thrones, Dominations when it came out several years ago. When A Presumption of Death was publis...more I was fortunate to win an ARC of this through GoodReads. Fortunately it arrived at a time when I didn't have any other fiction to read, so I read it straight off and am very glad I did.

First, some background: I am a rereader, and I have read literally all of Sayers' detective fiction countless times (literally). So it was with both trepidation and excitement that I read Ms. Paton Walsh's completion of Thrones, Dominations when it came out several years ago. When A Presumption of Death was published I read that as well. The Attenbury Emeralds is better than the latter.

I am also an historian; reading historical fiction is not something I do lightly or easily. There are only a a few very specific time periods about which I can read fiction, and frankly, The Attenbury Emeralds does not fall into the usual categories. However, from an historical point of view, I think Ms. Paton Walsh handles the inter- and post-war class shifts in Britain authentically; she also makes this tension an interesting part of the background to her story.

Her portrayals of Peter and Harriet are rather like looking at the portraits drawn of what missing people might look like after the passage of time - we cannot know if this is how Ms. Sayers might have articulated Peter and Harriet as they grew older together, but Ms. Paton Walsh's versions are sufficiently like what I think Ms. Sayers would have done for me to be comfortable with reading the story. (What a hideous way to put that - what I mean is, if I thought Ms. Paton Walsh had run the characters off the rails from what Ms. Sayers might have done, I'd have thrown the book against a wall, a la Dorothy Parker.)

Like several of Ms. Sayers' stories involving Lord Peter, this is a nice balance of light and dark. Denver's death and Peter's subsequent attainment of the title, as well as his reminiscences of the period immediately following WW1 shroud the story in somber moods. Peter's "piffle" of old is not here.

The plot itself is perhaps slightly unnecessarily complex: several generations' worth of large families make the characters hard to keep sorted, and the business of the stones themselves is also easy to lose the thread of. However, this was not so severe as to spoil the book as a whole, and may in fact lessen on future on rereads.

For me, the historical context and the character portrayals are the most critical parts, and Ms. Paton Walsh has done well on both counts as far as I am concerned.

I am very glad to have had the chance to read this ARC - I would have been hard-pressed to wait for publication!! (less)

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Mar 05, 2011 Jgrace rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery, historical-fiction

The Attenbury Emeralds – Jill Patton Walsh
4 stars

It’s 1951. Lord Peter Whimsy and his lady wife are at leisure in the library of their London home. The recent death of an old acquaintance induces Lord Peter to relate the tale of his very first case in 1921. This is like a visit with old friends. Both Bunter and the Dowager Duchesse become involved in Peter’s recollections. Harriet realizes that in asking for the story, she has asked Peter to recall a particularly difficult time from his past, t...more

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Jan 23, 2011 Mary Ronan Drew rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Back in 1921 the return of the missing Attenbury Emeralds was Lord Peter Wimsey's first case. Reference was made to the case over the years in Dorothy L Sayers' mysteries but until now we didn't know the whole story. And quite a story it is.

This story, which takes place in 1951, is another which entails restoring the king stone of the Attenbury emeralds to the family, which badly needs the stone in order to pay death duties, which the Labor government after the war raised to prohibitive rates. (...more Back in 1921 the return of the missing Attenbury Emeralds was Lord Peter Wimsey's first case. Reference was made to the case over the years in Dorothy L Sayers' mysteries but until now we didn't know the whole story. And quite a story it is.

This story, which takes place in 1951, is another which entails restoring the king stone of the Attenbury emeralds to the family, which badly needs the stone in order to pay death duties, which the Labor government after the war raised to prohibitive rates. (Aside: this led to thousands of English country houses being torn down or abandoned to fall down, which I consider an historical tragedy - a country abandoning its architectural legacy. We tear down our architectural history daily in the US but one would expect more sense of its importance in the Old Country.)

As the story opens, Lord Peter tells Harriet about his very first case, locating the king stone for Lord Attenbury when it went missing at a house party in 1921. Complicating that puzzle was the existence of a second stone with a continuation of the Persian love verse engraved on the back of the Attenbury family emerald. This second stone was shown to Lord Peter by Nandine Osmanthus (yes, I know, but Lord Peter doesn't do any gardening), a representative of an Indian maharaja whose family sold the stone now owned by the Attenburys to feed their people in a time of famine 300 years before. The maharaja wants to reunite them but the Attenburys won't sell in 1921.

Now they must sell, but when the current Lord Attenbury goes to the bank to claim the stone they have kept there for more than 30 years he finds someone else is claiming this stone is theirs and they have the paperwork to prove it. He of course goes to Lord Peter to help him out. Peter follows the story of the stone over the years every time it was taken from the bank, to secure a loan in 1929, to be worn at a costume party in 1941, and to be examined by a historian of jewelry after the war.

This book, for followers of the Lord Peter series, has some exciting and unexpected surprises. Our favorite characters reappear, Freddy Arbuthnot, the dowager duchess, Helen, and of course Bunter, now married and with a son who goes to Eton with Bredon, the Wimseys' son. Life has changed a great deal in England by 1951 but Lord and Lady Peter have adjusted and continue to lead their charmed life.

I was so enthusiastic to again read a Lord Peter story that I bought (for only 99 cents on my Kindle!) the first of the mysteries, Whose Body?, which you will recall begins with a quiet little man finding a corpse in his bathtub, which was wearing nothing but a pince nez. A review of that will be along soon.

2011 No 14(less)

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Jul 30, 2011 Brittany rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historicalfiction, mystery

These books have helped me define why it is I like some mystery books and not other. I like "mystery." I do not like "thrillers," "drama," or "suspense" novels. I enjoy the challenge of solving a problem with logic, I love the characters and the background, and the eye for detail. I don't necessarily enjoy the violent crime, pain, and ugliness that is often present in such staggering quantities in modern-day mystery novels. So I suppose, more precisely, I enjoy historical fiction mystery novels....more

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Feb 09, 2013 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'd previously read the two Dorothy Sayers books which Jill Paton Walsh finished off, and although I enjoyed them I didn't find them very memorable. For me this one, where she has entirely written her own story, is by far the best - it was almost like finding a new Sayers novel. I liked the way she takes the characters on and allows major things to happen to them. The story is set many years after the originals, in the 1950s, with Peter, Harriet and their sons and the Bunter family coming to ter...more

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Feb 24, 2011 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-mystery, mystery-england

Lady Peter Wimsey, the novelist Harriet Vane, casually asks her husband, Lord Peter, to tell her about his involvement with the Attenburys and their jewels, two linked cases that marked Peter's debut as a detective back in the 1920's, thirty years previously. The austerity of post-World War II England has not touched their family too much, but looking back on the 20's is gazing into a different world, as Peter tells the story. No sooner is he finished than the heir of the Attenburys appears aski...more

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Feb 12, 2011 Suzanne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was far better than I expected. 60% of the enjoyment is just spending time with Harriet, Lord Peter, and Bunter again. The mystery itself is not difficult to guess and fairly convoluted. A touch of the Five Red Herrings and Have His Carcass about it - although there are no deadly train schedules or word cypher segments - but this does feel more mechanical than organic.
To read the prequel of Lord Peter and to learn how his and Harriet's married life ended up .... is pretty sweet for a dieha...more

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About Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh was born Gillian Bliss in London on April 29th, 1937. She was educated at St. Michael's Convent, North Finchley, and at St. Anne's College, Oxford. From 1959 to 1962 she taught English at Enfield Girls' Grammar School.

Jill Paton Walsh has won the Book World Festival Award, 1970, for Fireweed; the Whitbread Prize, 1974 (for a Children's novel) for The Emperor's Winding Sheet; The...more

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Quotes from The Attenbury Emeralds

“Bunter came with me in the role of a friend. A role he has always played to perfection."
"It does not require dissimulation, my lord," said Bunter.
"Thank you," said Peter.” — 2 people liked it

“Granted, a man may smile and smile and be a villain, but it takes nerve.” — 1 person liked it

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The Attenbury Emeralds (Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane #3)

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